Freedom Can Fly
by highlandgirl
Summary: Max and the flock have been away from the school for a while now, and after trying to escape once, a few of the mutants who stayed behind are itching to escape.


**Author's Note: This is my first fanfic and I'm really nervous about it... Constructive criticism is welcomed. ****Some of the details about specific places and/or characters may not be 100% accurate with the Maximum Ride books, but I'm trying my best.**

**Oh yeah, and I don't own Maximum Ride, or the characters, or the places, or in this chapter's case, the idea of animal-kids.**

I woke up and tried to stretch out, just to whack my head against the side of my too-small holding crate. I held in a shriek and rubbed my head. I was awake now, that's for sure. I didn't bother trying to spread my wings… I hadn't been able to open them for 2 weeks, since the so-called scientists chained them closed. I yawned and stretched out as much as I could, as quietly as possible so nobody knew I was awake. Keeping my eyes shut, I curled back up into a ball and tried to get back to sleep, when I was suddenly awakened by a growl from somewhere behind me. Hitting my head on the side of my crate again, I twisted around to see what happened. Josie was desperately trying to bite off the ropes that bound her feet together. Again.

"Come on, Josie, give it up," I said to her, still barely awake. "We tried getting out just 2 weeks ago and it got us nowhere. Just… give up."

Josie let out another growl and stopped chewing at the ropes. "But wouldn't it be great if we could just… get out of here? I mean, I'm dying to know what happens on the other side of that gate!" She stared off into space and started to daydream. "I've heard some of the scientists say that tigers live in the wild, and they can just run and run… I mean, its not the same running here, Maegan, and even though I'm only 2% tiger, I'm meant to be free… I don't feel free! To be free would mean everything to me... even just for a day…"

I stopped her short. "It's not gonna happen, Josie. You know that."

"But I'm so sick of this!"

"It's all we know!"

"Yeah, oxygen masks, blood tests, heart monitors… tests and hospital beds aren't what we're made for!"

"Uh, it kind of is…"

"I don't think you get it… you're a bird kid! You're made to fly, to SOAR… in here to spread your wings at all is a treat! I'm a tiger kid… sure, I run a lot, but it's on a treadmill and hooked up to machines that are monitoring everything I do! Don't you get that we can do so much better than this?"

I sighed. I swear we have had this conversation every morning since we tried to get out. I mean, I agreed with her… to be out, to be free… to spread my wings and FLY… that'd be amazing… but I knew it wasn't going to happen, no matter how hard we tried. I reached my boney hand through a small gap in the fencing of my cage, into hers and placed it on her shoulder in attempt to calm her down, since we couldn't hug each other. There was nothing between my hand and the joint there except skin. I shuddered at how malnourished we both were, how thin we'd gotten. They hadn't fed us since our attempt to escape, and we were given water only when they were doing tests on us. I glanced at the clock. There was an hour before the white-coats would be back to do more testing on us. I was still weak from starvation, and the amount of blood they had taken from me yesterday.

I glanced across the hallway to the crates across from Josie's and mine. Keesha was half-awake, so I called across the hall, "KEESHA! Wake up!" She lifted her head up and glanced at me, waved and shook Makayla's cage to wake her up. Makayla shrieked, then covered her mouth immediately. Josie and I almost died laughing, and Makayla turned bright red. Obviously, she thought that the white-coats were taking her for testing. Makayla had just been brought back a month ago from the infirmary, because she was unstable for a while, and she was obviously not prepared to go back to being treated like a lab rat. Before she went to the infirmary, Makayla had passed out during an endurance test… they made her run and run and run… and when she started falling behind they shocked her, to test what effect adrenaline had on her physical state. She described it as the most painful, horrible thing she had ever gone through and has been constantly in a state of panic ever since. She was 2% rabbit, so she had an over-active nervous system and was very anxious already. She was happy to be here, though, and not in an observation lab. They kept her in one for a whole year once, just so they could see if her hair colour would change. Big whoop, doctors, you make a bunny-girl and she has the characteristics of a bunny. What did you expect? Needless to say, she's had a rough life here at the school.

Josie stopped laughing enough to say, "Morning, sunshine! Ready for another day in the life of a laboratory test tube baby?"

Makayla leaned her head against the front of her crate and murmured, "Kill me now. End my life of suffering."

"No. No, I will not kill you," Keesha replied, "but if they disturb my half-asleep state again, I might kill THEM…" she glared at me and Josie and I stuck my tongue out at her. Keesha lost a lot of sleep while the white-coats were re-adjusting her sleeping patterns after initial observation. She was moved here 2 months ago, from observation to adjustment and testing, and she still hadn't adjusted to normal sleeping patterns that suit the schedules of the white-coats. Yes, they're cruel people. We had to live with them.

I thought back to what Josie was saying about being free earlier. We made a break for it 2 weeks ago, and we would've gotten close if I could've learned how to fly before we left. Too bad the white-coats have had Erasers on call around the clock since a few years ago, when a bunch of the other bird kids went missing in the middle of the night. Before that, they'd had older kids escaping, but never 6 at the same time. That's why my wings were tied in right now, and that's why they never let me learn how to fly. Cruel, I tell you, absolutely cruel.

Speaking of living with cruelty, at almost that exact moment, the door opened and the lights all turned on at once. Everyone covered their eyes for a moment, then glanced down the long hallway. There was a rattling of cages and everyone in the room moved to either hide themselves, get a good grip on the back of their crate, or watch and see who they'd take first. 3 of the white-coats walked in with their clipboards and glanced into each of the cages as they went along, stopping at the cage to my right. They opened the door, checked Hannah's dog-tags, nudged her, and ordered her to go with them. Poor kid had been pretending to sleep, hoping that they wouldn't take her right away. Hannah was a bit of a mistake as far as the scientists were concerned. They meant to make her 2% chameleon and 98% human, which was kind of a good idea, but the foreign DNA parts had too much of an effect. She was very small, her skin had scaly patches, but nothing very major, and even though she was small and light, she wasn't a very fast runner. To top it all off, she was mute, like her mother had been, and was easily the most miserable out of the bunch of us. I felt bad for her as I watched her shakily follow the white-coats out of the hall. Soon enough, we were all taken to different labs, observation rooms, or the dining hall. This happened every morning, as far as I could remember, and every single morning I was absolutely terrified, and scooted to the back of my holding crate. The white-coats hated that, because they had to reach in and try to find my tags before they could take me for tests and stuff.

This morning was no different. This was a new kid, though, probably fresh from college. He tried whistling at me and snapping his fingers to get out of the cage, and asked me several times if he could see my tags. Eventually, after a while of my confused amusement and lack of cooperation, the doctor (vet? I dunno) that was unlocking Josie's feet reached in, yanked me forward and nearly choked me with my tags, trying to show the new kid "How it's done around here". To prove a point of some sort, I guess, he punched me in the face and told me to get out and go with the new kid. I sighed and jumped out, scraping my leg on the edge of the crate. I sighed again, louder this time, and looked over at Josie, who was being practically dragged out of her holding crate. I knew that this was going to be a long day.

**A/N: I know that this was kinda short, but I thought I'd use the first chapter as an introduction to the characters and their situation at the School. Thanks for reading :)**


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